There Will Be Blood
by inkstainedfingers97
Summary: "'She had it coming,'" Lisbon quoted to him. "You tell her you're sorry, and then you turn around and tell me 'she had it coming' Was that for my benefit, Jane? Did you think for some reason it would make me feel better to hear you say that? Because let me tell you, it most certainly did not."


Title: There Will Be Blood

Spoilers: Through 5x16, There Will Be Blood.

Rating: T, for sexual themes and mature language.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I'm certainly not making any money off them.

A/N: This has been in the works for quite some time, but I haven't been completely happy with it so I kept coming back to it again and again to keep tinkering with it. Now I've completely lost perspective on it so figured I'd better just post it and call it a day. I'm working on two little gift fics at the moment that I'm hoping to post before the end of the hiatus, if not before the holiday, so stay tuned for those as well. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this one!

Thanks to the lovely Chiisana Minako for the beta read.

xxxxxx

Lisbon stared after him in shock, her mind still reeling from the words he'd said to her as he walked away from Lorelei's body.

_She had it coming._

She swallowed, and forced her eyes back to the tableau that Red John had created. Lorelei, reclining under a sheet in a pool of light and her own blood. Her bare shoulders rising from the confines of the sheet made her look unexpectedly vulnerable. A far cry from the woman armored in leather on a mission to torture the truth from those who'd helped Red John murder her sister.

She had it coming.

Lord knew Lisbon was not Lorelei's biggest fan. The woman had set her teeth on edge even before she'd known beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was capable of murder and worse. But as she looked at her lying there, stripped and gutted beneath that horrible smiley face, she couldn't help thinking, _No one deserves this._

After all, had Lorelei's mission been so different from Jane's, in the end? Regardless of what she might have done before, this last rampage of hers had most assuredly been an effort to seek justice for her sister's death. Apparently, she and Jane saw eye to eye about the meaning of justice when it came to such things. Jane had proven he was willing to do damn near anything to catch Red John. Lisbon told herself there were lines he wouldn't cross, but could she really be assured that Jane wouldn't stoop to torture if he thought it would yield a lead in the Red John case?

The answer, of course, was no. For God's sake, less than a year ago the man had locked another person in a coffin and nearly allowed him to suffocate to death. And she knew he hadn't told her the whole story about what had happened with Lennon. The thought of him helping Lorelei torture the man to get the answers they wanted made her sick to her stomach.

_I trust her_.

From this, to 'She had it coming?' He had finally admitted he had feelings for Lorelei, and then he coldly turned around and disclaimed her entirely. He hadn't gotten what he wanted, so therefore this woman he had helped, had trusted, deserved to die by his enemy's hand?

She stayed at the crime scene for over an hour, concealing her shaking hands by stuffing them in her pockets. She spoke to Kirkland without attending to what she was saying—what was his game, anyway? What did Lorelei Martins have to do with Homeland Security?—and answered questions that anyone directed to her in a professional, but distracted tone.

Jane was waiting in the passenger seat when she got back to her car, staring out the window. She got in and started the car without looking at him.

When they got back to the CBI, they rode up in the elevator together in silence. When they arrived on the third floor, Jane exited the elevator and headed straight for the attic.

Lisbon stood there in front of the elevator like an idiot for a minute or two, torn. Part of her wanted nothing more than to wash her hands of him entirely. To tell him that he'd gone too far, this time, and that he was out, off the team, and that she'd have security escort him from the building if he ever showed his face in the CBI again. The other part of her—

She narrowed her eyes and marched up the stairs, feeling for her gun at her hip. She would shoot that damn lock off the attic door if she had to.

The door was unlocked. She shoved it open and stormed into the room to find Jane seated at his little table, his notebook open before him and a pen in his hand.

He looked round when he heard her, and then returned his attention to his notebook. "Hello again, Lisbon."

She stared at him, seriously considering ripping the damn notebook out of his hands and beating him to death with it. "What the fuck is the matter with you?" she exploded.

His pen scratched against the paper as he wrote something out in his notebook. "I'm sure you have a few theories. At least one of them is probably right."

"'She had it coming,'" Lisbon quoted to him. "You tell her you're sorry, and then you turn around and tell me 'she had it coming?' Was that for my benefit, Jane? Did you think for some reason it would make me feel better to hear you say that? Because let me tell you, it most certainly did not."

He finally turned around to look at her. "I was the one who set her on the path that she ended up following to her death. I'm sorry I did that to her. But the bottom line is that I trusted her, and she betrayed me."

"You trusted her," Lisbon repeated. "She almost cut your fingers off with a pair of garden shears!"

"Meh," Jane said dismissively. "That was before she knew the truth."

"You didn't trust her," Lisbon snapped. "You just thought she was like you. You thought you understood her, and that therefore you could manipulate her."

"She _was_ like me. Once she knew the truth, she wanted revenge, just like me. We had a common purpose."

Lisbon shook her head. "You deluded yourself into thinking that the two of you were going to be partners in killing Red John. Is that what you wanted? Someone not only to help you catch him, but to join you when you try to take his life? A true partner in your quest."

His lip curled. "Is that what this is about? You were worried that I thought of Lorelei as my 'partner?'"

"God, you insufferable _ass_. I know in your head, you imagine yourself as the center of some kind of warped love triangle between me and Lorelei—which is ridiculous, by the way, because I have never made any claim on you in that way—but I can assure you, this is not about me being jealous of Lorelei."

"What is it about, then?" he challenged her.

"It's about you, and what you're becoming."

"What I'm becoming?" Jane repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shook her head. "Sometimes, I don't even know who you are anymore."

"Don't say that," he said sharply. "You know me."

"No, I don't. I don't know if you're going to disappear for six months without telling anyone; I don't know if you're going to sleep with a serial killer's mistress to get closer to Red John—"

"To be fair, that probably wouldn't work twice," Jane said. "So it's probably a safe bet to assume I won't be trying it again."

"It didn't even work once!"

"Yes, it did. I know now that I've met him, shaken hands with him."

"Congratulations," she snapped. "You've narrowed down the suspect pool to two thousand people. I hope that's consolation for the fact that you've alienated everyone left who cares about you in the process."

He exhaled slowly. "You know me, Lisbon," he repeated. "You're the only person who does."

She shook her head. "Sometimes, Jane, I think I don't know the first thing about you. I don't know where you were born, or much of anything about what you did for the first twenty-five years of your existence. I don't know how you asked your wife to marry you. I don't know your mother's name, or why you never talk about her. I don't know if you're going to destroy everything in your path on your quest for revenge. I don't know if I can count on you."

A panicky, desperate feeling clawed at his chest. "You can count on me, Lisbon. I swear."

"Your promises mean nothing to me, Jane," she said coldly. "You've already proven to me that I can't depend on you."

"How can you say that?"

"You disappeared for six months without telling a goddamned soul!"

"To uncover the truth! I gave up everything to look for the CBI's most wanted. That's a sign of a truly dedicated employee, if you ask me."

"Yeah, that was real selfless of you, Jane. From what I've heard, the truth wasn't the only thing you uncovered in Vegas," she muttered.

"And we're back to the heart of the matter," Jane said. "You're upset because you think I cared for Lorelei."

"You admitted you had feelings for her!"

Jane shook his head. "Not like that. Not… romantic feelings."

"You slept with her," Lisbon reminded him.

"How many times do I have to tell you, I only did that because I thought it would get me closer to Red John."

"Yes, and that's always been so reassuring to me," Lisbon said sarcastically.

"You sure this isn't about jealousy?"

Lisbon closed her eyes and summoned what little was left of her patience. "Look, you liked her. I get it. You saw something of yourself in her."

"I—yes. I guess. A little."

Lisbon shook her head. "The trouble is, she was a little too much like you. She didn't care about anyone else, and she wasn't about to let anybody else get in the way of what she wanted."

"She was going to help me," Jane said stubbornly. "If she hadn't been careless, if she hadn't gotten herself killed, she would have helped me. She owed me."

"Owed you? For what?"

"For helping her learn the truth about what Red John did to her sister."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Did she ever actually tell you she was going to give you Red John's name?"

"No," Jane admitted reluctantly.

"That's what I thought. She didn't owe you a damn thing, Jane. She knew you were using her to get to Red John. She decided she was sick of being used by the men in her life, so she went off on her own, to seek revenge in her own way. And because of that, according to you, she had it coming when Red John killed her in one of the most horrible, painful ways imaginable."

Jane looked away, but Lisbon was unrelenting.

"Is that what you're going to say about me, Jane, when you find my body under a smiley face?" she persisted. "That I had it coming because I wouldn't help you kill him? Maybe you'd be right. Maybe that's what everyone will say. 'She had it coming, because she was too damn stupid to cut and run when she had the chance.'"

"Don't say that," he said sharply, getting to his feet and stepping towards her. "That's not going to happen to you."

She laughed without humor. "Of course it is. We both know it's only a matter of time. Because Red John thinks you're 'a little bit in love with me.'"

"It was Lorelei who said that," Jane pointed out.

"And who do you think she got that idea from?" Lisbon said, exasperated. "Think she came up with it on her own after spending five minutes with me? Somehow I doubt she got it from you."

"Red John isn't going to come after you," Jane insisted. "He doesn't know—" he stopped. "He doesn't know how important you are to me."

"He asked for my head in a box, Jane. Obviously he's under the impression that I'm of some importance to you, or he would have asked for something else."

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped. "All I'm saying is he doesn't know—doesn't know how deep it goes." He really was getting to be almost as terrible of a liar as Lisbon, he reflected. He didn't even believe himself as he said the words.

Lisbon shook her head. "I wish he could see the perspective from where I'm standing, because from here it's pretty clear you don't give a damn about me."

"You have no idea how much I care about you," he said savagely.

"Yes, I do," she said, too angry to be rational. "When the accounts are totaled, I rate a big fat zero." She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, and she thought she almost succeeded.

"It's the truth! I care about you, Lisbon. Tell me you believe that."

She was sick of his words, of his easy lies and half truths. She wanted something real and tangible that she could cling to in times of darkness. She wanted to knock him down, rip that damn vest off him, and bite into him. She wanted to mark him as her own, to make him feel a fraction of the pain she'd felt at his hands. To take what she wanted, for once, and to hell with the rest of it.

As if that would solve anything. As if it would accomplish anything more than pull her further into the abyss into which he was sinking, apparently by his own design. Her eyes flashed. "How can I believe a word you say when your actions constantly make a liar out of you?"

"You don't believe my words?" he said angrily. He stepped towards her, his eyes dark and wild. "Then believe this," he said fiercely, and kissed her.

She should have kicked him. The bastard knew what she'd just been thinking and thought he could placate her with one measly kiss? He obviously hadn't been listening to a word she'd said. If she'd had even the slightest amount of self-respect remaining to her, she would have hauled off and socked him in the jaw.

She kissed him back.

He tasted like sin. The devil's candy, she thought wildly, sweet and dark. Like chocolate covered lies; like cognac and sweet vermouth. She opened her mouth and drank him in, drawing deeply from the sweet nectar of his mouth. She wanted to consume him; all of him.

There were no gentle introductions, no hesitant explorations. Their mouths were hot and demanding, hands sure and urgent. She ran her hand along the surprisingly hard plane of his chest, gripped the back of his neck with her other hand to hold him to her. Meanwhile, he curved his body towards her, one hand tightly wound in her hair, the other skating down her lower back, pressing her to him. She arched into him, her fingers finding his belt loops and yanking him even closer, tilting her hips to meet his.

She considered pushing him up against the wall; no, that was a whole ten feet away. Pushing him down on the floor—no, that would require, however briefly, a separation of their mouths, and she couldn't have that. She backed him up against his desk instead.

He stumbled a little as he collided with the chair, and then half-fell against the table. He ended up half-sitting on his notebook, but neither of them noticed this as they continued to devour each other.

Jane's jacket was gone; Lisbon had a vague idea it had hit the floor before they'd gotten to the desk. Her fingers worked busily on his remaining clothing, but it was slow going. She bit his lip in frustration—his vest had like a thousand buttons.

He was making much better progress. He unbuttoned her blouse so frantically she spared half a thought to wonder if he was trying to set some kind of land speed record. Once he'd gotten far enough along to gain the access he needed, he slipped his hands inside her shirt and settled them on her bare waist, stroking her soft skin gently with his thumbs. He dipped his head to press his lips to her collarbone, then blazed a trail of hot kisses from the hollow of her throat down to the valley between her breasts. She nearly lost her mind.

She finally got the vest off as he raised his head and kissed her again. She was able to make much quicker work of his shirt (she might have ripped the last couple of buttons, but who was counting?). Once it was hanging loosely on his shoulders, she ran her hand along on his bare chest and he shuddered, dropping his head to rest his lips on her shoulder and clutching her to him. She sought his mouth again, taking his head in both hands and forcing it upwards so she could claim his lips with her own again.

She pressed herself to him. He hissed in pleasure as the heated skin of their chests and stomachs came in contact with one another. He moved against her and wound his hand in her hair again, tilting her head back to kiss her neck. She took her turn, pressing her own kiss, hot and open-mouthed, to the pulse point at the side of his neck. His hips bucked wildly against her, once, and she felt a savage satisfaction at eliciting this response from him, real and uncontrolled.

The need between them was overpowering. She slid her hands down between them, to where their bodies met. She shifted, her fingers feverishly working at his belt, desperate to have him; all of him, once and for all.

He chased her with his mouth, distracting her from her quarry. He slid his tongue into her mouth again, rough and insistent. He snaked his hands around her back, lifting her slightly to bring her closer, his hands roaming the skin of her back under her gaping blouse.

Assisted by the subtle pressure of his hands, she climbed half on top of him despite the somewhat awkward nature of the position, with him still half standing, half leaning against the desk. She brought one knee up to the desk to give her better leverage as she leaned into him, bringing their bodies onto a parallel plane, slightly angled towards the floor. His hand slid down to cover her ass, supporting her, drawing her hips even closer to his. They broke apart for an instant, foreheads leaning against each other as he rocked into her once, twice.

They were both still wearing entirely too many clothes. She bore down on him and they kissed again, long and deep.

He pulled away to kiss her jaw, but she evaded him after one kiss, not in the mood for tender ministrations. She lowered her head and bit his shoulder, remembering her resolve to mark him as thoroughly as he'd marked her (though those brands were unseen).

"God, Lisbon," he groaned, throwing his head back. He looked like a pale, moonlit Adonis, with his eyes closed and his lips softly parted, his golden curls silvery in the moonlight.

The sound of his voice was like a bucket of ice cold water being thrown over her. It roused her from her haze of carnal fervor and it finally dawned on her lust-addled brain what was happening here.

Reality crashed back over her. She was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of their mingled breaths, short and harsh in the otherwise silent attic.

Jesus, what the hell was she doing? She couldn't seriously be about fifteen seconds away from having sex with Patrick Jane in the attic of the CBI. She was supposed to be yelling at him, not fucking his brains out.

She brought her knee down off the desk and her heel hit the ground with a jarring thud. Her hands fisted in the collar of his open shirt and she shoved him roughly away from her. Since he was still backed up against the desk, this motion resulted in more movement from her than from him; she stumbled backwards several steps as she hastened to increase the distance between them.

Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears and panic curled through her veins. She hastily started doing up her buttons, unable to look at him. She snatched her blazer up off the floor and shrugged into it, pointedly ignoring his jacket lying a couple of feet away. She hugged her arms around her to ward off the sudden chill.

She looked around the cold, dusty attic and shuddered. Ugh. At least they hadn't made it to that damn cot. Mortification followed on the heels of the panic, painfully constricting her lungs.

She met his eyes. The heat still rippled between them.

His eyes were huge and dark, and for once, he appeared to be genuinely speechless. "Lisbon—" he said inanely, undisguisedly shocked. She wasn't sure if it was her behavior that had shocked him so thoroughly, or his own. He stopped, and swallowed. "I—I never realized how limber you are."

Of course he would choose now to say the exact wrong thing. God. She'd practically climbed up him like a damn koala bear. Anger flared up again, mercifully driving back the panic and mortification. "Shut up, Jane," she snapped, her face flaming.

He winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. It just came out."

Lisbon swore, cursing her own stupidity. She should never have come up here. She glanced out the window and thought about how far the door was behind her. Escape, while not a long term solution, was unbelievably tempting.

Reading some of this on her face, Jane started forward, afraid she might suddenly take flight. "Don't leave," he blurted out.

His shirt flapped open as he moved towards her, and she could see a hickey forming on his shoulder. She cringed. From here, it looked less like a mark of ownership and more like the simple evidence of her own wantonness. "For God's sake, Jane, put your clothes back on," she snapped.

He stopped, and obediently started to button his shirt up again, keeping his eyes on her as though to ensure she wouldn't sneak away when he wasn't looking. She fidgeted, and tried not to watch him as he tucked his shirt back into his pants and slowly buckled his belt again. He left the vest and jacket on the floor. He stepped towards her, reaching out to her with one hand. "Lisbon—"

She stepped back. "Don't touch me," she said sharply.

He stopped and raised his hands to signal his acquiescence. "Don't leave," he repeated.

Every fiber of her being vibrated with the instinct to flee. She bit the inside of her cheek and stayed put.

"We need to talk," he said, watching her as though she were an agitated colt he'd been charged with soothing, and he hadn't quite figured out yet how to go about it.

"Fine," she said, tone clipped. "Go ahead. Talk."

He raked his hand through his hair, looking frustrated. "Look, you were right, okay?"

"About what?" she asked suspiciously.

"Red John. He knows you're important to me. He makes it his business to know the things I care about."

Suddenly she wasn't so sure talking was such a good idea. But in for a penny- "Look, Jane, I didn't come up here to—" throw myself at you like a jealous fool, her brain supplied helpfully. She stopped. "That's not why I came up here."

"I know," he said quickly. "I know that, Lisbon."

She sighed. "Look, I know you won't believe me when I say this, especially after—especially now. But I meant what I said. I wasn't angry with you because I was jealous of Lorelei. I mean—okay, I was a little jealous. But that's not why I was upset."

He studied her face. "I believe you," he said at last.

"I came up here because I'm worried, Jane," she went on. "I'm scared of how cold you're becoming."

"I'm the same as I've always been, Lisbon."

"No, you're not. This woman you shared something intimate with was killed, and your response was to say she had it coming. Is that the man Angela married?" she challenged him. "The man who tucked Charlotte in every night?"

He clenched his jaw. "Trust me, Lisbon. There was nothing intimate about what happened between me and Lorelei."

She shook her head. "Now you're just lying to yourself."

"There were no candlelight and roses, Lisbon," he said impatiently. "I slept with her to get closer to Red John, that's it. She slept with me because she thought it would make him care for her. We both deceived each other, but we did it with our eyes open. Both of us were a means to an end for one another, nothing more. I knew what she was from the moment she introduced herself to me. I'm sorry if you don't believe that, but it's the truth."

"That's even worse! You're admitting that you're willing to use sex as a way to manipulate someone. You have no scruples about taking an intimate act and corrupting it for your own ends."

"I will do whatever it takes to avenge the deaths of my wife and child," he said coldly.

"Does that include sleeping with me, too?" she said caustically. "Maybe you think that's the best way of keeping me biddable when it comes to following along with your crazy plans to kill Red John. Is that what this was about? Am I just another 'means to an end?'"

He stopped, appalled. "Of course not. How can you say that? Do you really believe I would do that to you?"

"No," she said reluctantly. Despite everything, she couldn't quite believe that of him. Unless he was the best con man on the planet, at least part of the desire he'd just displayed for her was real. On the other hand, she wasn't convinced he wouldn't use—hadn't used- his kisses to distract her from a conversation he didn't want to have. She was pretty sure he hadn't counted on her practically attacking him on the desk, though. "But you take my point."

"I would never risk our relationship like that," he said evenly. "The situation with Lorelei was entirely different. Sleeping with her was simply the price I had to pay for the information I needed."

"You really think your wife would want you to whore yourself out in the name of revenge?" Lisbon said skeptically. She would never have said such a thing ten minutes ago. Though in and of itself, what had just happened between them was still terrifying, her own intimate encounter with Jane had emboldened her on this front. Normally, she never spoke of Jane's wife—the subject had been taboo between them for years. He could mention her in passing, but Lisbon was never to introduce her into the conversation unless Jane spoke her name first. This was the tacit understanding they'd operated under for the better part of a decade.

Well, things had changed. If he was willing to stoop to manipulating her by using her attraction to him against her, she wasn't going to pull her punches anymore.

"My wife is dead," he said harshly. "She's beyond caring what I do. That's thanks to Red John, so I will make him pay for what he's done."

"No matter what the cost," she finished for him in disgust.

He frowned. "I didn't say that."

"You just did," she said, exasperated. "And it's the truth. You've proven it, time and time again."

His eyes bored into hers. "On the contrary, Lisbon. I think I've proven by now exactly which lines I'm not willing to cross."

She thought about him shooting Hardy to save her. Thought about the elaborate ruse of shooting her with a gun full of blanks and then spiriting her away to a deserted warehouse so she would be safe. She flushed under the intensity of his gaze, but was determined not to be sidetracked. "Am I supposed to be grateful for that? That you're not willing to sacrifice my life in the name of revenge? Because that's not saying much, Jane. If you really cared about me- " You wouldn't have told me you loved me, and then taken that away from me. You wouldn't have abandoned me for six months, knowing exactly what it would do to me. She forced herself to keep her voice steady. "If you really cared about me, I'd rate a little more than that."

He raised his hand as though to touch her, but stopped when she flinched away. "You have no idea how much I care about you," he said, repeating his words from a few moments ago. He dropped his hand, defeated. "If you did, you'd run away as far and fast as you could."

Lisbon was so tired of his doublespeak. "Is that a recommendation, or a request? Because right now, I have to tell you it's pretty tempting to take you up on that suggestion."

"It's… my second greatest fear."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"That one day I'll push you too far, and you'll send me away. That you'll kick me off the team." He swallowed, and looked down. "That you'll give up on me."

The idea of being free of this poisonous love for him was unbearably tempting. She thought of her earlier rage fueled conviction that she would be better off if she washed her hands of him entirely. "I don't know what to tell you, Jane. Today might be the day." If only it wouldn't have left her with a giant hole in her life where he was supposed to be, maybe she would have actually been able to go through with it.

He lifted his head. "I can't let you do that. I can't let you send me away now."

Of course, even if she did manage to gather the strength to send him away voluntarily, it wasn't like the feelings she had for him would just evaporate. That poisonous love was in her veins, an inextricable part of her; it would continue to plague her no matter what amount of distance she managed to put between them. Still, recent events had demonstrated spectacularly that keeping him with her wasn't particularly healthy for either of them. Maybe holding onto him so fiercely was selfish on her part. She sighed, suddenly weary. "Maybe it's for the best, Jane. I don't think being on this case is good for you. It's destroying you."

He looked away. "He sent Lorelei to me because he thought she would remind me of you, you know," he said abruptly.

"_What?_" she said, horrified and distracted despite herself. As diversionary tactics went, this was a particularly effective one.

He smiled a little wryly, though the expression was devoid of humor. "He didn't do a very good job. The best he could do was send me someone with a superficial physical resemblance to you." He shook his head. "I didn't realize it at first. I'm not sure I could have gone through with it, if I had. But later it occurred to me that it was curious that he'd chosen someone roughly the same shape and size as you to tempt me back to the land of the living. That was when it finally dawned on me that it wasn't a coincidence—it was a calculated move designed to appeal to my desire to be closer to you. He must have noticed how much I missed you."

Lisbon wrinkled her nose, appalled at the comparison. "She looks nothing like me."

"No," he agreed. "Not to someone who knows you. But you have to admit, there was something in it. She was small, dark, and strong, and he tried to use that to draw me in. He even instructed her to act like you, at first."

"What do you mean?" Lisbon said, aghast.

"She spoke about faith, when she first approached me. But she didn't have faith, not the way you do. I can see now that she was trying to liken her devotion to Red John to the faith that you have, to remind me of you, but it was such a clumsy imitation that I failed to recognize it for what it was at the time. She couldn't quite pull it off, that discussion of faith."

Lisbon had a hard time imagining Lorelei Martins discoursing on the subject of faith. "What did she say?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The point is, she was a beautiful woman but she lacked your… emotional complexity. In a way, that was why it was so easy for me to let go with her."

Her mouth turned down. "Gee, that makes me feel so much better."

He sighed. "I'm saying, sleeping with her was safe. It was a relief to lose myself in the moment, for once, because there was never any danger of losing myself in her." He met her gaze. "You, on the other hand, are decidedly dangerous."

"I'm not the one who's been running around town torturing people," she said, irritated.

"That's not what I mean and you know it," he said, annoyed.

"Well, why don't you spell it out for me?" she retorted, equally annoyed.

"You're dangerous because I'm at the point where I would give up everything for you, and Red John knows it," he snapped.

This from the man who had cut her out of his life for six months so he could pursue his precious revenge. "Yeah, right," she snorted. "You've never given up a damn thing for me."

"I've given up _this_!" he shouted, gesturing between them. "God, Lisbon, how can you be so blind? He's there, watching from afar, and he can see it—why can't you see it when it's right in front of you?"

Given up… this? She still felt the ghosts of his fingertips on her skin, as though he'd branded her with tongues of flame. "See what?" she challenged him.

"Red John already knows you're my Achilles' heel. If something happened to you, I would break. Don't think he wouldn't use that knowledge against me if he had any clue about the true extent of my feelings for you. If he knew—he wouldn't stop at mind games, Lisbon. He would come for you, and he would kill you," he said harshly. His single greatest fear.

Lisbon wasn't buying it. "Don't pretend like I'm somehow the reason you've been behaving like an even bigger jackass than usual. Your decisions lately haven't had anything to do with me. All you care about is revenge."

He met her eyes. "Not anymore."

Lisbon swallowed. "I'm worried about you, Jane," she said again.

"I'm worried about you, too," he said angrily. "He's a threat to everything important to me. You think the case is destroying me? If it is, it's at least in part because the fear of him still being out in the world, free to act without retribution is slowly eating away at me. There's no peace for me while he's still out there. Sometimes the thought of bringing him down is the only thing holding me together. But despite what you might think, it's been about more than revenge for a long time now."

"So what now?" Lisbon demanded. "Your plan is to bring down Red John all by yourself by being the biggest bastard possible? You're going to continue isolating yourself because you think somehow that is going to keep the people in your life safe?"

He stepped closer to her again. "I have to be hard, Lisbon. I have to be cold. I have to do everything in my power to prevent him from discovering the extent of my weakness." His eyes were haunted. "If the only way to do that is to become completely ruthless, I'm damn well going to do it. I'm never going to find your body under a smiley face, Lisbon. I'm not going to do it. It would end me."

"And I'm just supposed to accept this?" she said incredulously. "That you think making yourself more ruthless is somehow going to protect me?"

"Do you think this is what I want?" he said angrily. "I don't have a choice, Lisbon."

"Well, I don't accept it," Lisbon said shortly. "You have a choice, Jane. Don't pretend like you don't."

He shook his head. "This is the only path open to me."

Lisbon thought about his reaction to their kiss, wild and uncontrolled. His eyes, dark and hot. His searing touch, full of need. That was what Patrick Jane looked like when he held nothing back, she realized, the state in which he couldn't hide himself. And she was the one who had driven him to it.

Hope, long dormant, stirred within her. "No it isn't. There's always another path open, Jane."

"What is this choice you imagine I have, Lisbon? What is this other path you see for me?"

"Be the man who tucked Charlotte in at night, who makes paper frogs and plays card tricks on Rigsby." She swallowed, and took a deep breath. She'd already exposed herself this much. She might as well lay it all on the line. "Be with me."

He smiled a little, though the expression lacked humor. "And you'll cure me of my evil ways?"

"Don't charge me with the impossible," she said dryly. "I'm not a miracle worker."

He shook his head. "It's too dangerous."

"I don't want you to lose that person, Jane," she said seriously. "And I don't want to lose him, either."

"Do you know what you're asking me?" he said angrily. "You're asking me to put the thing most precious to me at risk of being stalked and killed by the most sadistic killer either of us have ever encountered. What kind of man would I have to be, to do such a thing?"

"You really think I'd want you to protect my life at the expense of—of—"

"My soul?" he finished for her, his lips twisting into a savage smile.

"Well, yes," she said, piqued.

He waved his hand dismissively. "My soul isn't worth that much."

"It's worth something to me," she shot back.

"I'm sorry I can't be the man you deserve, Lisbon," he said wearily. "Believe me, I would give you more if I could."

He was an idiot. She thought of his mouth, desperate against hers. He wanted her. He just thought he couldn't have her. She'd thought she couldn't have him, either. It turned out they were both wrong. Well, Lisbon always made it a point to right her wrongs. They were both adrift—clearly, it was going to be up to her to correct their course.

It was true, what she'd said before, that she'd never made any claim on him.

Maybe now was the time to stake her claim.

"I am your partner, Jane," she said firmly. "I am your friend. I want to be more. But thirty percent isn't enough for me. I'm going to require that you give me more of yourself than that."

"Don't ask me this, Lisbon," he said miserably. "I'm not strong enough to resist you, even if it is for your own good."

She was tired of him making all the decisions. Especially since he'd made so many bad ones lately. It was time for someone else to be in charge. She stepped forward and laid her hand on his chest. She met his eyes. "I'm asking, Jane."

He closed his eyes, clearly struggling as two sides of his will warred against one another.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly.

He groaned deep in the back of his throat and kissed her back as though he couldn't help himself. The kiss was softer than before, sweeter, but no less desperate. He buried his hands in her hair, cradling her head in his hands, kissing her so sweetly it was like warm honey running down her throat.

"Well, what's it going to be?" she asked, a little breathlessly, when they broke apart. "Are you going to continue down this path of self-destruction you've set for yourself? Or are you going to let me help you?"

He looked at her, beautiful in the moonlight.

He leaned in and surrendered himself to her.


End file.
